20 September 2021
A Grand Adventure
Manawanuitanga. Going Against The Grain.
Writer: carly thomas
Photographer: michelle hepburn
Larissa Mueller is a woman with an adventurous spirit and a wanderer’s heart. In the nine years she spent circumnavigating New Zealand on her trusty horse, Sprite, she encountered many things – windswept beaches, high hills and generous, warm-hearted people. But the biggest discovery along the way? Herself.
It was an unlikely sequence of events that saw Larissa take on an epic horse trek around New Zealand, and it all started with an inkling of an idea. In 2012, while slogging away in a burger joint in Taupō, she met Kendall Besselman, a quietly determined young woman from Tāmaki Makaurau-Auckland. The two quickly bonded over a shared childhood dream: "We had both been that kid who always wanted a horse but never had one," says Larissa. In conversations snatched between serving customers, the newfound friends hatched a plan to fulfil their long-held ambition. "We decided, literally in one afternoon, to buy a horse together. Then we thought we had better buy two. And then it went to, 'Let's ride them around New Zealand.' We were naive enough to think we could do it, so we did."
Neither Larissa nor Kendall had spent much time around horses, but that didn't stop them from jumping in head first. There was an initial flurry of finding horses - only to discover that they were the wrong horses. The friends made other mistakes too, all "down to our absolute lack of experience" recalls Larissa. When they eventually got themselves to the point of starting their journey, it was extremely short-lived. "Within twenty-four hours we had turned around with our tails between our legs. Everything that could go wrong did. We realised we weren't ready and it wasn't going to happen that summer."
But the pair weren't going to give up at the first hurdle. After regrouping, they moved to Hawke's Bay - a better starting point for their ride the following year. They spent their time getting prepared and finding a couple of horses that were much better suited to their endeavour. Whenthey finally set off to ride Sprite and China around the South Island, they felt much more organised. At last, their trek had begun.
The distances the foursome travelled each day varied. Mostly between five to twenty-five kilometres, although there was a gruelling forty-six-kilometre day that, in Larissa's words,"nearly broke us". When their bums got sore, they got off and walked. When their legs got sore, they'd get back in the saddle and ride. "The first few weeks, we were just figuring it all out," Larissa explains. "Some days it took us a couple of hours to get up and get away from camp. There was a lot of trial and error, but we eventually got into our stride."
The women followed whatever route was available to them: roads if they had to, long stretches of coastline if they were lucky, and farms if they could get permission. The large stations were a high point, says Larissa. It could take all day just to ride across one, and the owners knew their neighbours more readily than in towns, so it was easier to keep the clear riding going. Friends followed their progress on Facebook and word about the two intrepid riders and their horses soon got around. "We would sometimes be adopted by a horsey group of friends, and they would help us out. That was always amazing," Larissa explains. "But most of the time we were on our own organising it. We were constantly checking the maps and looking ahead to what was coming."
When it came to finding somewhere to spend each night, the number-one priority was a safe paddock for the horses. Carrying a tent, food and cooking gear meant they were able to be self-sufficient, and Larissa made a game out of seeing how often they could get away with not putting up the tent. That meant she and Kendall slept "anywhere and everywhere" - woolsheds, shearers' quarters, caravans, horse trucks, garages, people's floors, spare beds and couches. "We got looked after so well. So many people sent us on the way with sandwiches, took us in for dinner or gave us a whole bag of apples off their tree," says Larissa. "There are so many amazing and generous people in this country. I learnt a lot about all the different people that are out there, all the different viewpoints and backgrounds. There are so many amazing people in this country. I always say now, 'If you lose your faith in humanity, just travel around the country on a horse.'"
Two summers later - and after a total of eleven months riding - they reached the end of their South Island leg, and Kendall made the call to hang up her saddle bag. Larissa credits her friend with helping her get through that first big stretch. "I don't think I would have done it if we hadn't kicked it off together. Kendall is so tough and has so much resilience. We supported each other. If one of us had a down day, the other generally wasn't feeling so bad and could carry the other along."
The next leg was just Larissa and her clever grey horse. The moment her saddle was on, Sprite knew what was on the horizon. "She was dancing on the spot, like she was saying, 'Come on! Let's go! This is great!'" says Larissa. Riding solo took the trip to a whole new level, and Larissa's bond with her horse deepened. "Sprite was at least fifty-one per cent of the team, and she is incredibly important to me. It's hard to explain." Sprite found her stride. She learnt to eat and nap wherever and whenever she could, and she would quickly switch on to "autopilot". "She had her good days and her bad days," says Larissa. "Sometimes, like me, she didn't want to get out of bed. But then she could be really forward-moving and going for it. We got to know each other really well. Some days I didn't have to touch the reins for hours at a time. I would just use a little bit of leg to steer her. We got in sync with each other."
There were tough days. Larissa and Sprite battled along windy beaches while the sand whipped their faces. They got drenched and bedraggled when rain came despite the forecast, and they had times where it was just one tired foot in front of the other. As Larissa says, "When you push outside your comfort zone, you have to go through some challenges." And then there were the days that she will hold in her heart forever. When Larissa and her four-legged companion chugged along a clear path with wide open country before them, the feeling of "being out there and just doing it was absolute freedom".
Larissa stuck to a routine of riding through the warmer months, and resting and working during the colder ones. Near the end of her adventure, she used her downtime to complete another mission - doing up a house truck that she named Little Blue. Around the same time, she met her partner, Alex McFarlane. An adventurer himself, as well as a long-distance trail runner, he is just as drawn to the road as Larissa.
Alex became her support crew for the final leg of the North Island and, thanks to Little Blue and Alex, Larissa didn't have to rely on the tent anymore. At the end of each day, she could look forward to a welcoming smile and some warm food. "It was great to see Alex at the end of a day riding on my own," she says. "Having company and someone to talk to was special and Sprite would go straight to Little Blue's door, where there were often treats. She saw it was home as well."
The closer she and Sprite got to finishing their long journey, the more Larissa tried to imagine what it would look like, what it would feel like, and the tears would come. But when the moment actually arrived in May this year, nine years after the wild idea was first sparked, Larissa finished her grand adventure with dry eyes. "I think I had processed it all by then. I was glad to have finished and to have made it, but the whole journey was just so much a part of what I did every day that it didn't feel like the end."
Larissa will tell you the ride changed her. "It was quite a significant time. I was twenty five when we first came up with the idea, and I'm thirty three now. I wasn't doing what most people do during that time of life. I'm a totally different person. I have evolved and learnt a hell of a lot about myself." She's built up a reserve of resilience. She knows that on her own, in only the company of her horse, she can face considerable challenges. "There were times when things weren't going right and I felt alone - really, really alone - but I just had to figure it out and get through. In the evenings, I craved interactions. I loved when I was invited to dinner and I could talk to people, not just my horse!"
Larissa might have finished one awe-inspiring journey, but she knows that once the wheels of adventure start turning, the world becomes one endless and open sky of possibilities. For now, Larissa is focused on finding her feet and settling into what life could look like moving forward. She's in a bigger house truck, but still living the nomadic life, and when asked "What next?" she just shrugs and says with a sly grin, "Who knows?"
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This story appeared in the Kōanga Spring 2021 Edition of Shepherdess.
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